


Bring you home

by UltimateGhoster



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), DCU
Genre: Angst, Barbara Gordon is Batgirl, Blood, Bruce Wayne is Batman, Canon-Typical Violence, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Evil Joker, Graphic Description of Corpses, Hurt Dick Grayson, Hurt No Comfort, Investigation, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Oneshot, Sad Bruce Wayne, Violence, angst without happy ending, missing person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:49:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25960837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UltimateGhoster/pseuds/UltimateGhoster
Summary: Jason arrives at Dick's apartment to carnage and no sign of Dick Grayson or who he fought with. He calls Bruce and washes his hands of the problem, but Bruce is taking his time finding out where Dick has gone and Jason is beginning to get concerned. With the two having grown closer in recent months, he sits and waits for Bruce to bring him home.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne
Kudos: 51





	Bring you home

Light crawled through the torn curtains and into the apartment, furniture lay on its side decorated with smashed glass and deep red stains. Jason looked around the apartment, searching for signs of what had happened to the inhabitant or the assailant, he had very little to go on at the moment. Picture frames with half-smiling faces lay about beyond hope of repair; every personal element of the place was destroyed, leaving only a shell of carnage. The fight had lasted for some time to leave this in its wake, so where was the winner, who won? Knowing who broke in would be the best way to figure that out. Meaning he was going to have to do something he really didn’t want to do, “Bruce, it’s Jason. We’ve got a bit of a situation you may want to take a look.”

It took Bruce ten minutes to get to the apartment he barely gave Jason a once over before he began to gather evidence. It felt like they were investigating a murder; he didn’t want to think about the fact that they just might be. Bruce continued looking around the room before moving down the hall to take in the rest of the apartment. A post-it note glinted at Jason from the fridge mockingly displaying a reminder for a breakfast date in the morning. “Looks like you have everything under control, I’m gonna go get on with my business then and leave you to it. You’ll be able to handle whatever this is.” He started backing out of the window down to the street. He paused to snatch up the post-it note.

He hadn’t heard anything in three days, three stupid long days, which should have been more than enough time for the bats to solve this. So why hadn’t anyone called him to tell him everything was taken care of? Sure he wasn’t always on the best of terms with anyone at any moment in particular, but Alfred would’ve called him if they’d figured out what happened. Unless, unless the reason no one called was that no one knew where he’d gone, or why they’d found his apartment like that. Well if they hadn’t found him yet, Jason sincerely hoped they were still looking, because there was no way in hell he was going to bury an empty coffin, god this would be devastating. For fuck sake, no ones died yet especially not this soon after having started to piece themselves back together. You don’t just get to cut somebodies life short like that, he would know after all, not when they just started to fix themselves. No. No, he wasn’t some scared kid waiting for mum to come home if someone he cared about was missing he was going to go find out why and bring them back. Letting go was never one of his virtues anyway, so screw this because some people deserved to grow old and sit on the porch. A knock rings through the apartment snapping him out of his spiralling thoughts, the door swings open to reveal Bruce. Bags are deep-set around his eyes; the lines on his forehead are more prominent like they always are when he’s struggling with a case. “We’ve been given a set of coordinates for where he is, but they want you to go, alone. I don’t like it, we’ve found nothing else. Barbra and I have been looking for any lead, so far all we’ve found is that Joker broke out of Arkham a week ago and that Red Hood left that apartment the night before the attack. He may have seen this as an opportunity to continue what happened when you came back to life; you caught his eye with that one.” His voice attempted to conceal the weariness his face betrayed.  
“There’s nothing Joker can do worse than he’s already done. I will kill him if I get the chance.” He kept his voice clear and impassive. Bruce would be able to see the worry anyway. Joker would be seeing this as a way to mix things up and go back to a time when things were more interesting for him. Well, he wasn’t about to let him get away with anything.

Jason took comfort in the familiar feeling of his body amour pressing against him as he headed towards the abandoned funfair the coordinates led him to. Walking under the decrepit archway, he saw a depressed tent decaying in the centre of the pitch; toxic lightbulbs illuminated a series of booths with signs above them calling for attention.  
“How much do you think you’ve lost?”  
“Did you give up so easily?”  
“Why would we just let you abandon us?”  
“Surely you aren’t so delusional to think we’d just disappear.”  
He felt his breath catching under his helmet as he neared the jagged opening ripped through the wall of the tent. The smell of rotten hay and blood greeted him upon entry, slipping his gun out of the holster he edged his way towards the centre of the tent. His boot slid in a slick substance that stained the floor, his gut twisted but he pushed on not stopping to look down. Two shadows lay in the middle of the tent one appeared to be a person while the other was small and round. Jason rapidly approached the humanoid shape.

A brilliant spotlight illuminated where Jason was crouched and bile began to race up into his mouth. Keeping his eyes trained on where the smaller shadow had been, he saw blood pooling on the floor, clotting in black hair making it appear matted. The face was turned away from him, but he didn’t need to guess it was made painfully apparent who it was by the days of absence and the stained blue crest he was pressing his hand to at the moment. Manic laughter spilt into his head as a crazed green haze shrouded his consciousness, drowning his grief in familiar insanity.  
“Do you like it? I remember how much fun we had just after you came back, and I just knew you would love the reminder. The duffel bag felt a bit redundant as there’s only one head, but I think you’d agree this is far more dramatic.” Grotesque laughter punctuated the air around them, further fuelling the animalistic rage clawing at Jason’s chest. “Honestly this is so funny, I might just lose my head laughing. Now it can be just you, me and good old daddy bats. I never liked the bluebird anyway. None of my jokes ever worked on him.” Deep resentment tainted his words as Joker’s laughter trailed off, the brief reprise only lasting for a moment before he started up again. Recounting ideas of what the three of them could get up to now he’d gotten rid of any distractions for them. Unable to tolerate the noise any longer, Jason pounced from his position, tackling Joker to the ground, pummeling him with his fists pistol still clutched in his hand like a lifeline. Blood seeped from the craters on the clown’s face, trickling onto the sawdust, blending with what had yet to dry into the earth. Joker’s cackling became intermingled with his wet coughs and spluttering chokes. Spurred on by his sadistic glee, Jason became more energetic with his punches aiming at his chest and stomach now he didn’t need to hold the villain down. The life left the clown long before the haze left Jason’s mind, his body nothing but a flesh sack with pieces of fractured bone floating inside. 

Jason stared dejected at the corpse in front of him. He turned to his brother and picked up the parts of his body, before turning around to take him home.


End file.
